Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it.

— Maya Angelou

Epigraph quoted, without source cited, in Helen Nafziger, 'No Secret to Getting a Job', collected in Steven John Rothberg, The Last Job Search Guide You’ll Ever Need: How to Find and Get the Job Or Internship of Your Dreams! (2002), 143. Also found in several books published later. Webmaster has been unable, as yet, to verify this quote. If you know the primary source, please contact Webmaster.

We don’t understand electricity. We use it. You can plug into it and light up a lamp, keep a heart pump going, light a cathedral, or you can electrocute a person with it. … I think talent is like that.

— Maya Angelou

In Maya Angelo and Joanne M. Braxon (ed.), 'An interview with Claudia Tate', I Know why the Caged Bird Sings: A Casebook (1999), 154. Also seen paraphrased as, “Talent is like electricity. We don’t understand electricity. We use it.…”. [Many thanks to P.D. for locating the citation, previously unverified here.]

In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- Carl Sagan